Burnham drängte darauf, Airbus einen Auftrag für Militärsatelliten im Wert von 2,4 Milliarden Pfund zu vergeben, anstatt dem US-Konkurrenten
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2026/jul/24/burnham-urged-to-award-military-satellite-contract-skynet-airbus-unite-union
Von topotaul
30 Kommentare
Why? Both bidders will be UK subsidiaries of foreign owned multinationals.
Good, the Americans have gone out of their way to show they can’t be trusted.
Sounds like a sensible move, it would bring some of the work back to the UK (Airbus does a lot of design work in the UK but a lot of their manufacturing is in mainland Europe)
As far as I know Lockheed Martin wouldnt do any of the work in the UK
After Trump’s constant antics? Of course the contract should go to Airbus!
Urge him to award whoever does the manufacturing in the UK. I get that’s a stretch as it’s between the US and Europe currently but with every contract we should be thinking how do we get jobs here just like the US and other countries are doing. Europeans would be the preferred option but we need to leverage these contracts for better political gain.
The USA is an unreliable ally, our national security should be removed where possible from the whims of the ignorant would be tyrant over there.
It’s a shame because the average American has no idea their country is losing out on things like this because of their current administration.
Great idea, Europe > America, we will always be European, our path lies with a stronger, more united Europe
Is this why there’s that massive Airbus ad in Waterloo station and presumably elsewhere? trying to encourage public / civil service worker opinion
We should not be awarding a government contract of any kind to the US or Isreal for the foreseeable future. When will morality finally get a place in how the UK is run?
Trump outright said the NERF military equipment they make for other countries. wtf would you use them.
Airbus and push for more to be done locally.
The French are great at this. They use local suppliers to boost military and economy at the same time.
Focus on whatever gets the UK workers the biggest share of workload. We don’t want to help the US but likewise the EU left the UK out of various defence funds so there shouldn’t be any loyalty towards them either. Let’s focus on giving the UK maximum bang for its buck in terms of maintaining skills by having the work completed in the UK.
So since no one cares, does anyone know who has the better product, cause it would be weird to buy an inferior product knowing Russia has been looking to pick a fight with the UK just because trump, people forget defense procurement is a 20-50 year plan.
Sure glad we’ve got a bloke whose biggest career achievement was reorganising a bus service deciding this.
Shouldn’t even be a consideration if Airbus can offer a comparable service/product and keep UK employers funded along with continuing links to European companies for trade. The only thing I think would be an improvement to this is if it is negotiated that all future UK Defense funding is initially aimed towards the EU in the return for access to the European Defense fund for a fair value like Canada has recently gained.
strategic capability deploying and sustaining strategically important skills… on shoring this is an obvious decision. Even if it costs a little more directly, the additive value from on shoring will more than compensate (if HMT’s tiny market economic brains can grasp that). Who cares if the US is upset – what will they do? Threaten NATO? insult our country, its leaders and servicemen? place tariffs on us? They’ve already done all of that and more. We need to reduce our exposure to a single dominant partner who is increasingly not aligned with our interests and is proven to be volatile.
America isn’t a reliable ally. Invest in our own companies
100% give it to Airbus with a contract that says they build them both at Surrey Satellite.
Donald can get stuffed. He will be upping those tariffs again in 6 months whether or not we give the U$A this business. Buy European until they stop electing clown leaders over there.
This should not even be a discussion. The US are an unreliable ally, full stop. Keep contract in the UK and Europe.
It’s a shame we don’t seem to have an actual British company capable of doing the work…
Politicians never seem to realise that if you contract work out to a foreign company, the money you spend (or at least most of it) is _gone_ from the UK economy, but if the same contract goes to a UK company the money (or at least most of it) stays in the UK economy, supporting jobs, getting people off benefits, etc. a decent chunk of it even gets returned to the treasury through the various direct and indirect taxes.
Our country would be in so much better shape if, when contracting work out, the government would actually consider what’s best for the UK, rather than just picking the lowest bidder.
I know some military types, who when talking about threats to our security, stated the ability of the U.S to use a kill switch on our missiles, aircraft, and nuclear capabilities was their biggest concern.
These are people who operate with the U.S military and have operated in war zones with them.
Militarily we are allies but the guys above the people dodging bullets…
That might be tricky given that the UK bought Oneweb, not realising that the satellites were made in Florida and the rights were still owned by airbus. Maybe this is a way to get access to those design rights. Maybe this is a fool me once… situation ?
Airbus do the current ones, They work alright, Let them do the next ones
Of course award it to Airbus.
Can we stop being such a US vassal and actually invest in our own region and with countries with whom our values align more closely?
This seems like a no-brainer.
The US have proven to be completely unreliable. Not a single military contract should be sent their way if a viable alternative is available.
With the fresh American tariffs applied, now would be the perfect time to respond with a decision like this.
The us administration cannot be trusted to stick to any deal. No matter how good a deal sounds, it’s worthless if they don’t honour their deals
I hope he does, fed up with us always trying to appease the US just for them to spit in our face. The “special relationship“ is totally dead, more like the one way relationship.